Linux.conf.au - Day Two

The second day of the conference dawned just as bright and sunny as the first. The opening keynote was delivered by Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. She spoke on the history of the FOSS movement as birthed by Richard Stallman and it's paradoxical growth during the same period that governments and corporate bodies were pushing their agenda for stronger IP and copyright control. Gabriella took the audience through the wrangling that forever forced the FOSS community into the political arena and created the biggest threat to the traditional concept of IP that exists today.

Tuesday is traditionally the second day of miniconfs at LCA, with the lineup including:

System Administration Miniconf
Bridging the gap
Open and the Public Sector
Education Miniconf
Data Storage and Retrieval Miniconf
Multicore and Parallel Computing Miniconf
Multimedia Miniconf

For me, the highlight of the day was the talk by Paul Gunn of Weta Digital, who explored the 'Challenges in Data Centre Growth' inherent in the demanding task of rendering movie frames. With some limited personal knowledge of the makeup of the infamous Weta render farm, it was fascinating to get a closer look.

This year, Linux.conf.au is hosting a photography competition for delegates and speakers, with four sections breaking the stunning Wellington city sights into quadrants. Entries are accepted for Lambton, Cuba, Courtenay and the Waterfront, roughly delimiting four areas of interest in Wellington's compact CBD.

The first round of competition entries have been judged with the finalists announced - disclaimer, I was one of them - you'll all just have to believe me that I intended to mention the competition before I knew!

The first round of finalists were:

Dustin Kirkland
Tim Potter
William Gordon
Jes Fraser

With Dustin Kirkland having entered two winning entries.

Day 3 will usher in the conference proper, starting with a keynote by Benjamin Mako Hill.